


So Glad You Came Here, Won't Be the Same Now

by SegaBarrett



Category: Animal Kingdom (TV)
Genre: Family Feels, Future Fic, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-24 17:29:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15635364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/pseuds/SegaBarrett
Summary: It took seven years, but Lena is coming home to Pope.





	So Glad You Came Here, Won't Be the Same Now

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Animal Kingdom, and I make no money from this.
> 
> A/N: Song referenced in title and story is "Old Brown Shoe" by the Beatles.

Lena wondered if the table and chairs had shrunk, or if she had really grown that much larger in the past eight years. There were no longer tiny teacups at the edge or stuffed animals seated in the chairs, but he had kept it – she figured that was something. 

Or maybe she was knocking on the door of a man who didn’t want to be found, which was also entirely possible. 

So she hadn’t exactly told her caseworker the truth about Pope knowing that she was coming. She was just saving the woman some work, anyway. Because this couldn’t go wrong – could it? 

Unless Uncle Pope had decided that he didn’t want a kid in his life. Unless she had remembered it all wrong and this was just a pipe dream and she would be headed right back into foster care, to smile wide and hope another family would take her in, to be ready to talk about how she would 

If he didn’t want her back, why did she see her table and tiny chairs through the window of his apartment?

And if he didn’t want her, why did he have a two-bedroom? 

She sucked in a breath and knocked on the door again. 

What if he walked to the front and didn’t recognize her? Didn’t want her?

Or it could be the way Melanie had warned her it could be – that Uncle Pope was incapable of taking care of a “child” (that’s what she had called her, a child, and Lena had sneered because she hadn’t been a child in a very long time), that Lena could end up being the one to take care of him. 

Lena had told Melanie that she was okay with that, and Melanie had scribbled a few more concerns on her little steno pad. 

She heard the sound of creaking first, then footfalls against the hardwood floor. 

He appeared in front of the glass door and rolled it to the side, jaw dropping, and for just a moment he was sure the word that was going to come out of his mouth was “Catherine.”

In the books and in the movies, girls with dead mothers were always cursed to become them, to cease to be themselves and simply be a mirage they didn’t understand. And maybe it was true. She didn’t look a thing like Baz – in her head they had become “Baz” and “Catherine” long ago, ideas as opposed to people. Images – Catherine in the kitchen, tossing bacon into a frying pan. Baz sitting in a recliner arguing with Pope, Craig, and Deran. 

Pope didn’t say “Catherine.” He didn’t say anything. He simply stared, a little open-mouthed. The moment seemed to last forever, as if Lena had stepped on stage in a play and remembered, suddenly, that she didn’t know any of her lines.

And so she ad-libbed.

“Uncle Pope,” she said, smiling. “It’s me, Lena.” It was a dumb thing to say, but there it was. That was what she’d come up with. 

“I know,” he said, opening the door wider. “Lena… Come in.”

Lena took a step inside the house, let her sneakers touch the hardwood floor.

They hadn’t wanted to let her go, none of them had, but this was the place she needed to be. The words came back to her again “Lena, you might be the one who ends up taking care of him.”

Melanie had said it so many times that it seemed like a normal thing to expect, anyway. Helpless Uncle Pope, leaning on Lena. Was that such a bad thing?

She could remember sitting in a room listening to a classic rock station, and old song by the Beatles:  
 _“I'll live and love and maybe someday,  
Who knows, baby, you may comfort me…”_

She smiled, the words caught in her head, and she almost missed it when Pope told her again, “Come in, Lena. Come in.”

She stepped into the living room and looked around – a futon in the corner of the room and a TV mounted on the wall. An end-table with a pair of photos propped up on them. Lena leaned over and picked up the first – a man with cropped blonde hair standing next to another, younger man, both wearing tuxes.

“Who’s this?”

“Your uncle Deran, at his wedding. That’s his husband, Adrian.”

Lena blinked.

“Uncle Deran is gay?”

Pope shrugged.

“I didn’t know until I got invited. I guess I’m not very… perceptive.”

They both chuckled and looked at each other for a long moment. Lena picked up the second photo – a man with long, black hair, next to a woman with black hair and a little girl.

“This must be Uncle Craig, then.”

“That’s him. His girlfriend Renn, and their daughter Ria… They live down in Mexico.”

Mexico.

A beat; Lena swallowed.

“I heard about Lucy, and her son.”

It had been in the papers.

Pope breathed, paused, and replied, “Lucy and Smurf and J.”

That had been in the papers, too. 

Lena walked over and opened the door to one of the bedrooms.

“So this is my room, huh?”

She took a step inside and looked around. It was covered with pink and purple, and unicorns. Plush unicorns, unicorn posters, and a little box that Lena found played a song when she opened it – a unicorn dancer. There was a huge poster of Hannah Montana hanging above the bed. Lena didn’t have the heart to tell him that these days her latest project was binge-watching 13 Reasons Why. 

“Is it too…” Pope let it hang in the air.

Lena picked up the music box and opened it again, letting it play.

“It’s perfect, Uncle Pope. Thank you.” She put the box back on the night-stand and looked at him. “You want to order a pizza? Or we could go downtown and get something. I should probably check in with Melanie and let her know I got here okay, though.” She titled her head to the side. “Check in with ‘the man’, you know.”

Pope slowly cracked a smile.

“How did you get here, anyway? Did someone drop you off?”

“Took the bus.” 

Lena put her backpack on the canopy bed and looked up at him. 

“So, pizza, or…?”

“Pizza,” Pope agreed, and shuffled out to the living room. 

Lena looked at her phone and the same song filled her head again:  
 _“I may appear to be imperfect,  
My love is something you can’t reject,  
I’m changing faster than the weather,  
If you and me should get together,  
Who knows baby, you may comfort me…”_

She smiled and rose, going to her closet and opening it. There was a full-length mirror hanging on the door, and Lena searched the reflection for signs of Catherine or Baz. 

She saw only hope looking back at her.


End file.
